My Geraldine Ferraro moment

In 1984, I worked for USA Today in Washington D.C. and was part of a team covering the presidential race that year.

The day after the Ferraro VP candidate announcement, the paper sent me and a photographer to her congressional office. We chatted for about a half hour and then the photog set up for the photo. Ferraro interrupted him so she could put on lipstick first.

This was still the intense women’s lib era, which I also covered as a young journalist. It was a time when women didn’t even put photos of their kids on their desks, because they didn’t want to appear “soft.”

So I was a little surprised to see Ferraro — the first woman vice presidential candidate — do something as “feminine” as put on lipstick.

How silly it seems in retrospect. And how lucky I feel to have met this pioneer.

Ferraro died March 26 from a blood disease. She was 75.

(S-R  Archive photo of Ferraro in 1984)